Sherlock's Choice
by lemonn
Summary: John is kidnapped by Moriarty. Sherlock has an impossible decision to make. Torture, suspense, angst
1. nightmare

The cool morning air outside Baker Street feels like breathing again after the swamp of the flat. I put my hands in my pockets. Head down, I start to walk to work-

And I am stopped: hands, all over me. There are too many to fight. My vision is gone - a cloth. When I open my mouth to make any noise (as long as it's loud) another piece of material is stuffed between my teeth so my jaw is wedged open until I strain. My arms are tied behind my back with rough rope; my neck is pulled taut as I'm dragged backwards, feet sliding beneath me, struggling as my shin hits something hard, a ridge of metal, and I topple, acting as my own lever, my feet leaving the ground so I fall forward in a surreal, blind airlessness until I bounce once –twice –, teeth clashing together, and yet more cloth near my face, pressed against my nose this time and I try one more futile struggle before, unable to hold my breath anymore, I inhale the chemical. Hot liquid flows from my scalp. Blood.

I wish I was Sherlock.

I wish I could know who these people were, from the sound of their voices and the squeeze of their hands. I wish I could know their exact intention, and what flaws in their lives I could manipulate them with. All I know is that there is the slam of a door; a few seconds of silence; a rumbling beneath me. I am carried away to the unknown.

Just observations, but no conclusions from them. I should be memorising each turn. I am not Sherlock though: Sherlock is oblivious at Baker Street, and I only have _my _brain to help me. My now drugged brain. I can predict one thing though: when I wake up again, there will only be terror, torture...

Images of Afghanistan, the open leering bloody crater of my mind, is suddenly burnt onto my retinas. Not again. I squeeze my eyes shut, almost in preparation for the pain, and my last thought (_p__lease, God let me live)_ teeters on the edge (_please) _of the darkness (_live_) before it falls and I am unconscious.

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><p>I hurt. That is my first thought, before I process anything else. The basic human feeling: pain. I can't lift my head, as if there is something physically holding me down, though I know it must just be drugs. I blink several times, but the blackness doesn't pass; the cloth must be still wrapped round my eyes. My breathing increases, and I end up groaning, despite knowing it's stupid and will bring me to the attention of my quite-obviously-dangerous captors; I can't help it, not due to pain, but due to this entrapment. Hot. Close. I need to get out.<p>

There is the echo of footsteps before what must be a single finger running down my cheek. I don't have to stop myself from squirming, I am bound so tightly. One mercy. The finger slips under my blindfold and rests on my flickering eyelid. I bat it with my eyelashes; how pathetic, reduced to fighting back with mere hairs. The finger does not press down on my eyeball in revenge, simply continues to snake its trail round the side of my face, to the back of my head, and the cloth of the blindfold loosens. It falls with an audible whisper to the floor, everything else is so silent. The hand tenses behind my head, and begins to bend my neck forward, until it hurts. I sit up in a bout of dizziness, and the pressure stops; he has presumably achieved his goal. I am aware that my hands are still tied behind me; I grip the floor with them to stop me toppling backwards.

There is hot breath near my ear. "Hey Johnny Johnny Johnny, open your eyes."

Moriarty. My silent tormentor has finally spoken. Or whispered.

There is a harsh pain on my face and the noise of a slap. I have never been slapped with my eyes closed before. The suddenness, the fact that there was no prior knowledge to its coming, hurts more than the sting.

"Do as Daddy says, John."

He rests a hand on either side of my face, bracketing me; the gentleness of his touch after the slap, after everything he's done in the past, nearly makes me lash out. If I could.

"Oh! I can feel your pulse, Johnny, under these red cheeks. It's very fast. Passion? Perhaps. Fear? More likely." Both hands pat my face like I am a dog. "I find the two are interchangeable, better together in fact" His finger traces a spiral on my cheek. "Now aren't you going to open your eyes?" He must be speaking with his bottom lip jutted out; he sounds like a toddler pretending to cry. But as he speaks next, his voice has snapped back to its vicious norm:"I want to see their delicious blue".

I want to scream. Opening my eyes and seeing his face, the stretched smile of white skin, will make this a reality rather than a twisty, sweaty nightmare that I can wake up from, to see Sherlock playing the violin in the corner and turning to me, _are you alright_?

_Fine. I am here with you, Sherlock. It was just a nightmare._

My heart beats; my fists tense behind me; I open my eyes.

Not a nightmare at all.

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><p><strong>AN: Sorry it's so short! I do intend to write longe****r chapters in the future; this just seemed like an appropriate break. Hope you enjoyed.**


	2. hero

"Aren't you curious about the fun we're going to have?"

I do not reply. He looks at me with a smooth smile, and smacks open a mobile phone.

"Bring the pliers here. John's not cooperating..."

He voice is like a broken record; jumping from low ("John's") to high ("cooperating").

He pockets his mobile but doesn't hang up.

We are in a small room, concrete, with patches of wet as if it had just rained (even though no water would get through that thick roof). You could fit perhaps a line of four single beds in here. Not that there are any. Every inch of the room is thick and grey; there are no windows, only a single, naked, swinging bulb's faint orange glow and only one door, heavy and steel, which Moriarty is leaning across, watching me as I struggle to continually sit up, weak from drugs with my hands behind my back.

Slowly, he begins to walk towards me, and then he crouches down; his right hand runs down my cheek, my neck, over my shirt, pausing and circling on my nipple, before all the way down, over the soft spot at the bottom of my trembling stomach, and increasing the speed to launch itself suddenly into my pants. There is pain.

I know this type of interrogator – though he wants no information from me, just pain. Or maybe he does. I am not sure what he wants. This type, though, they elongate everything. They make the pain slow and the build-up – their speech; their movements; their teasing threats and fingers - slower. It is the worst thing. Hanging in limbo (sometimes literally hanging), just waiting on a snap of a thread for Hell, until you almost end up begging for it. It is not a technique or tactic for Moriarty, though – just the way he is; the way he naturally approaches things.

"You no fun." He leans so close that his breath is hot on mine; they mix in the air and I hate it. "Answer my question or else", he murmurs.

He tightens his grip.

"I can feel your cock pulsating in my hands. Does it do this for Sherlock?"

"We're not-" I stop myself.

"So we have a response!" His hand pinches as it leaves my pants. Jumping up, he claps his hands once above his head, and then suddenly holds them there in theatrical pause, staring at me with a wide-oval mouth, before saying "oh" and slowing resting a forefinger against his bottom lip. "Pointless though, because I know you're lying."

"People definitely do talk then," I murmur. "Who do you gossip with.

Humour, even unfunny, has always been my saviour; it keeps me sane, despite the situation and, if nothing else, makes me laugh.

Moriarty tilts his head, like a curious reptile. "Cute really, that you try for a morsel of control."

Though rather than confuse Moriarty, it seems to have riled his interest; as Sherlock has told me, you never want to do that (despite the fact that he himself does it constantly).

"Now answer my question. Are you curious about the fun we're going to have?"

My silence ended when my objection to my relationship with Sherlock broke free; the power-play in the game has gone; I may as well talk.

"What do you want me to say?"

"Oh Johnny I don't mind!" He places a hand melodramatically on his heart then and tilts his head onto his shoulder suddenly like his puppet-string had just been broken. "As long as it's what you truly feel."

Suddenly he is shouting.

"ANSWER ME JOHN!"

His face is strained, hands behind his back. I think of me, a soldier, in hot Afghanistan, exhausted by war, and violence, and the trickle of lives running through my fingers, down my shirt, drip drip drip onto my boots. Never to stand at ease. But him, James Moriarty - this man has even more blood pooling at his feet, and as he bounces up and down in front of me, itt ripples. It is so different for him; he does not deal with death in nightmares but in dreams. Does he not notice the stickiness – on every inch of him - of stolen blood?

"John," breath hot on my face and I am flung, like a stone in a boy's slingshot, back to the present, where Moriarty is still standing. A child with his toy.

"Am I curious?" I reply. "No."

No, I do not want to know what this man is going to do to me, how he is going to make me die, and how he is going to simply shake off my blood and move on to a world void of sleepless nights, hands scrubbed until they peel and public flashbacks. Unlike me. Sometimes I wish I was a psychopath.

"We are going to have fun with you and _Sherlock._" His eyes flick between mine. "Oh you thought it was going to be with little Johnny." His gaze rests on my crotch for a moment, before it loses interest and returns to my eyes. "No, John. I am going to rip your innocence away in a way that a little bit of sex cannot do on its own. On its own anyway." He shrugs. "I'm sure we'll try it to see if it works too. I am going to drag you and Sherlock down together."

I do no say anything. Moriarty mentioned him; he flicked his tongue in the right way and, there, Sherlock is involved. Of course he is. The only reason I am here is because of my link with Sherlock. I mean nothing to Moriarty - I a way to Sherlock - and yet in this moment, Moriarty means everything to me, he is my whole life because it is him who could choose to change it, end it. I don't blame him; it is always Sherlock for me too.

"John." I am back in the present. "Surprise of your life! Look behind you!"

It is like a pantomime. Moriarty is giggling, suddenly standing to the side so I can turn around and see the obvious.

I close my eyes and wish for anything else, but this was never about me, and always about him.

The man who whisked me away, on an endless sweaty wrestle with his character, with this genius, a brave and sometimes even kind man; full throttle I have been taken from believing he is like Moriarty (at moments, still), to a man full of goodness; because I know that he does feel the blood of the lives he has lost, and feelings he has stung, and the tears that have fallen because of him sticky on his fingers. He enjoyed the pool until I arrived; then he saw me and asked if I was alright. Sherlock is behind me.

I open my eyes again.

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><p><strong>AN: Thank you for all your lovely responses. I know that was an outrageously cheesy ending – I don't do cheese much but I'm in a sentimental mood. Next chapter should make up for it. I really don't want to paint Sherlock as a nice man.**

**I'm not completely sure when this is actually set. They survived the pool . Just sometime after that I suppose (ignoring the whole second series). About Sherlock being a hero and John's question over it, I genuinely think he is in some ways and he proved his assumption that he wasn't one wrong in Reichenbach.**


	3. squirm

There is Sherlock's face. It fills the whole wall. I am vaguely aware of a projector humming away above me. Sherlock leans forward in his chair towards what must be a webcam; I can see the wallpaper of Baker Street behind him. There is a moment where he just watches, judging the room, the positions of Moriarty and I. I can imagine that he can calculate an exact percentage chance of my escape. Low? High?

Then his eyes fall on me. Fall, because, they do not recover, they are not dragged up to stare at something else; they fall on me and they stay there. Sherlock's face softens for a moment that is gone before I can truly believe it was real.

I know Moriarty is saying something, but I am concentrating too much on Sherlock's silently moving lips to hear. Moriarty turns the volume up. At first, it is still too quiet to hear: I can see the skin of his cheeks creasing as his lips form the same word again and again, but I am too scared to assume that what I think he's saying is correct. It is then, though, that the volume reaches full and it is undeniable. I inflate, smiling for the first time since I got to this stinking, cold, grey room, because Sherlock Holmes , in loud, clear notes that fill the room, from the man who can save anyone from anything, is calling for me: "John, John, John!"

"Sherlock," I whisper.

Then I wonder why he is screaming.

"John," he says. "Lo-"

Then I realise. On the floor, I see the calm black silhouette of Jim Moriarty's raised arms clutching a crow bar over my head. The shadow does not the malice, excitement and rage that no doubt twists his face. Is that a kinder way to know my fate? It is certainly calmer, more dream-like.

I glance at Sherlock in what I know are my last few moments before it strikes. I do not know Moriarty's aim - to knock me out? To disable me for life? To kill me? - but Sherlock surely does.

What is the chance of fatality, Sherlock? 20%? From that angle, that swing, that size of weapon. 30%? I know his brain has already calculated it. How can he stand looking at the world like that?

Because he's Sherlock.

And Sherlock suddenly speaks, releasing the words like vomit; sudden, disgusting. "I will decide at midnight."

The chance of death must have been at least 60%; he has given Moriarty what he wants; the crow bar clangs to the ground behind me.

(Decide what?)

Sherlock reaches forward for the computer screen, his mouth in a thin line and I know he is about to sign off (disgusted with his decision?) to leave me in this cold grey dungeon but then without a his expression betraying his change of mind, slowly removes his hand.

"Go-ooood," says Moriarty. "Oh! This is even better than I had wished in my wildest, wildest dreams! And there have been many dreams... You are not going to leave John, are you Sherlock? I have _beaten _you."

" This is just a simple _choice Y_ou have not beaten me. You've cheated."

I have no idea what they are talking about. All I can think about is that his monotone is like drinking fresh water after Moriarty's sickening, sugary squeal.

"I have you though, Sherlock, don't I? I have you trapped!"

"You've disappointed me. I have nothing to solve, nothing to do, no challenge. Where is the element of puzzle? How do I prove myself here? You gain nothing. You can't even watch me dance."

"Watch you dance? That was fun enough, but I want to watch you _squirm."_

Sherlock is still looking at me.

"He's fine, Sherlock."

I think of Moriarty for Sherlock - a small, dangerous figure on his laptop screen.

"Please do not tell me what he is or is not."

Did Moriarty just leave Sherlock a note, give him a web address for a certain time and a scribbled choice? Something involving me, surely? _What shall I do, Sherlock, remove his leg or his arm?_

I open my mouth to demand that someone tell me what's going on, especially since this _choice_ seems to heavily involve me, and if-

Sherlock twitches his head. For a moment I'm not even sure it was a deliberate movement. I stare at him a moment more, and once again, clearer this time, his head - almost impossible to notice, but I do - shakes from side to side. Moriarty has no idea, but I resist asking my question.

"I can see you, Sherlock_," _Moriarty is saying. "So clearly. I know what you're thinking! And that's how I've beaten you!" His vowel sounds are long. "It has always been your weakness Sherlock. You like things to be pretty and clever. Odd you went for him really."

He tilts his head in my direction.

"It doesn't take a genius to set something like this up," says Sherlock.

"It does take a genius to trap _you_ though, Sherlock, doesn't it? Ooh, and I love giving you a choice. Watching you having to decide is so _hot._"

Sherlock shakes his head. "Not like this. This is _easy. _Juvenille_."_

"That is the problem with you, Sherlock. You see this choice as beneath you, and yet you are trapped. You overlook the simple-"

"Because I don't plan for things _beneath me_. Things _beneath me_ are usually too scared to get involved with me at all, let alone kidnap..."

He trails off, and its not like Sherlock; he, for once, does not use words, just gestures to me - and for the first time since being on the screen looks away from me and to Moriarty. Are there no words? Is he embarrassed? Does not even he know how to describe us?

Is kidnap me the worst thing, in his eyes, someone can do?

"Your best friend? Your lover? Your kinky love-toy? Oh don't worry, Sherlock. We all know anyway."

Moriarty walks over to me, four echoing footsteps, and his hand is down my pants again; he unzips my flies as well this time, for easier access.

"Are you thinking about this now? Oh, Sherlock, it's rather big." He looks at me now, with a squashed smile. "I can feel it between my hands, and if I squeeze-"

He squeezes again, and I barely stop myself from squirming. A layer of water has formed on my eyes, and I see Sherlock through it, opening his mouth as he watches, and his nostrils flare ever so slightly.

Sherlock eyes narrow slightly as Moriarty stands up and walks towards a small black box by the door, which must be the camera Sherlock is getting his feed from. He puts his face close to it, almost touching.

"Good old simple emotional torture." Moriarty says, glancing back to me momentarily, and then taps the camera. "I'll give you two some alone time now, shall I? No jealousy here. I don't see John as worthy competition."

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><p><strong>AN: Obviously reviews are always appreciated. Thank you for reading so far (and thank you to the reviews so far!) and I hope you've enjoyed it. **


	4. To die

Moriarty is grinning. He sways on the spot with glee. I wish I can do something, but there is nothing for me to do: it would be a child trying to join a political discussion, a baby trying to walk, John Watson trying to compete with Sherlock Holmes and James Moriarty. All I know that if the choice was between me and Sherlock, the answer is obvious: I must die. If it means I die (a blogger) for Sherlock to carry on (the only one in the world) then that is what must be. People need him, the lives he has saved and the cases he has solved, and he is spinning around in my head, a hero, and he cannot be here to die too.

Moriarty reaches the door. "Have fun!" he says, high-pitched like a scream before slamming the door behind him.

I look up. Sherlock's eyes are glazed. He is close to the camera, and about to explain exactly where he thinks I am, and other information I really don't give a fuck about. My head is fuzzy as I turn. I do not even have time to answer. And then the questions are endless.

"Leaks, weak patches? Is there a code for the door or is it a key? How far underground do you think you are? Did you notice how far you travelled? How many corners there were? What direction you went in? Anything strange? Anything?"

Sherlock leans even closer.

"Anything _at all_ John? I need to get you out of there. Or you need to get yourself out. You're an army man John. How strong do you feel?"

"Sh-"

"Have you sustained any serious injuries? You look fine, but I cannot judge level of concussion from this distance. They drove you in a van, I can see. Large-panel, obvious. But the colour would be useful data, John."

Sherlock pulled out a large pile of papers he was sitting on.

"CCTV Stills of your kidnap."

He flashes them at the screen too fast for the me to see.

"The van was not near the camera. I cannot tell. How many men where there? Obviously a group, to kidnap you," Sherlock smiles, "but were there more in the van? When did Moriarty become present? Have you had one-to-one contact with him. That is important. I…"

"Sher-"

"Believe that one-to-one contact shows fear. _Dirty work_? That is not him. But look at you…" Sherlock, unembarrassed, eyes my crotch. "He has. This is Moriarty, delicate. Not some beating-you-up henchmen. So he's nervous. Of you. Has he-"

"Sherlock!" Suddenly, he is still. Sherlock's mouth closes but, like when you clamp your hand over a bottle of fizzing champagne, it is an obvious effort to contain the outpour. "Just...just. Shut up. And tell me, why has he-"

"Let us to discuss this?" Sherlock replies quickly. "Because he thinks he's won."

"Has he?"

Sherlock closes his eyes, and I find myself leaning forward on his chair. When they open, it's a flash of blue light. "It's the closest he's ever got."

I look around the room. "There isn't a way out, Sherlock. There are no vents, no leaks, no weak patches. The door is coded and locked. I have no idea how far underground I am. I was drugged, and woke up in this room. I could be 20 floors down. I could be one. You can probably tell by the colours of the walls-"

"Fiver floors down-"

"We could be in Scotland, for all I know-"

"You're not, the brickwork is London, to be exact-"

"Sherlock, please, I really don't give a fuck where I am."

Sherlock shuts his mouth and I think that this is very odd.

"I'm not too hurt, a little concussion, a few bruises. Mainly dehydration, hunger. I do not know how long I've been here."

The more he listens to what I say, the less his eyes dance. "Three days."

"I've had one drink."

Sherlock's mouth tightens. "I noticed."

"I've seen mainly Moriarty. I've also seen one other man, though I know there are a lot more."

"Any idea how many…"

I shake my head. "No, Sherlock."

"Why does _he keep_ letting us discuss this? He has won but he doesn't need to…"

"To make it as painful as possible."

"Has it done its job?"

"Yes."

He opens his mouth.

"Sherlock…please. Tell me what is going on. Not which part of London you suspect I'm in." I glance at the concrete above me. "I don't think it's going to be easy for you to reach me without endangering yourself."

Sherlock says nothing.

"I know that often isn't a very big concern for you, but you're not doing it."

Sherlock lifts his chin high, lips forming a "J" but then they seem to give up. Sherlock deflates. That is the only word for it. The brazen Sherlock suddenly disappears. Sherlock always owns his height. But now, his confidence, the definite air that always surrounds him, the certainty, is gone. He looks too tall for himself.

"Just tell me, Sherlock."

Why is it, all of a sudden, that I am doing most of the talking? Something that any other day I would cherish. Right now, though, I need Sherlock being as Sherlock-like as he can possibly be – doing what he does best and _explaining_.

I am aware of how I look. Bruised, tied up, flies undone. A small, helpless and insignificant figure almost indistinguishable - camouflaged in a much bigger room. Sherlock's eyes, though, do not lift from the pin prick that is me.

"I am sorry I did not foresee this," he says. "This is my fault."

Sherlock, apologising. For once I do not want it. After all the times I have begged Sherlock to say those few simple words…My fists clench, because apologizing means it's over, means that if Sherlock Holmes cannot solve this no one can, that the proud Sherlock is kneeling, bowing his head and admitting defeat.

"No…no… it's not your fault." I pause and steel myself. "I- I-" I feel my voice hitch, "look Sherlock, I don't even know what _this _is. _What_ did you not foresee?"

Sherlock looks away, as if he cannot bear to look at me, and he wrinkles his nose. For a moment then, he is like the post-kidnap, post-choice, post-losing me Sherlock (is he going to lose me?). For a moment. The moment is gone when he lifts his head for our gazes to meet, and it looks like more than a physical effort. A mental one.

"There is going to be a train John," he says simply.

Sherlock's voice carries throughout the whole room but he is talking quietly. Crisply and quietly. The air is surreal and though I know that something about this train means bad news for me, it seems like a fairy story, a distant spy novel, a book before bedtime. Disconnected from me. Read by Sherlock.

"From Cambridge to King's Cross," he continues. "At full capacity, holding 432 people. There is going to be…"

Thriller. Spy. Guns. I am the central character. The hostage. They are working to save me, the clock is ticking, beads of sweat coat the foreheads of the main characters, triggers are pulled, there are head-banging explosions as I escape with nothing but my own muscles, just in time to save my love from the claws of terrorist death...

I do not even realise that my eyes have been closed, when I open them to Sherlock's blank face and a grey room and my tied hands and my aching body and my no chance. Even Sherlock can't save me from this:

"a bomb."

There are no large explosions, and no gun shots, and no daring run. Just an unforgiving, desolate, sucking silence.

A choice. Me or the people. To die.

Sherlock's choice.

How generous of Moriarty.

"The answer is… obvious," Sherlock's voice is final.

"Yes…" I agree. "It is."

At least Sherlock's life is not involved.

"You will not die," says Sherlock, and it like he is talking to himself, steeling himself up in determination, speaking with the reverence and certainty people reserve for a bible verse.

"What do you mean I don't-" I begin, but then I look at his perfectly balanced fingertips and his closed eyes and the slight tension around his mouth, and I know - And I almost choke. I do. The anger, the disbelief, makes me forget how to breathe, makes me want to stop knowing how to breathe. "She- Sher- You can't."

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><p><strong>AN: Well I hope you enjoyed that. Please let me know how I did! T****hank you for reading and especially for all your reviews. **


	5. no life

**A/N: Again it has been far too long. This story escapes me for some reason. I think it's because I go myself in a bit of a rut when Sherlock said he would not let John die. Well we'll see how that goes for Sherlock, now I've finally got back to this and worked out what I'm going to do. Enjoy! If that's the right word.**

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><p>This is no life. This cannot be the same world that I grew up in, that I ran to school every day in, that I surveyed through hopeful eyes and thought that I could fix, that I joined the army fresh from medical school in, determined, that I led a life full of love, friendship and happiness in. That I met Sherlock in. This cannot be the same world. This is no life.<p>

I hang. Arms strung to chains that I can barely now distinguish from my own flesh. I no longer feel the cold. I no longer feel the pain. I no longer hear Moriarty's voice. I am covered in bruises that I cannot feel. My back is a mass of welts. I have been raped, mind and body. My body is no longer my own.

My world has been Moriarty's whim. Moriarty's anger. Moriarty is the God of this world. He had told me that what he had thought were Sherlock's priorities: logic over friendship; Moriarty over the rest of the world. He had been wrong, so when Sherlock had said he would not let me die, he had simply turned the projector off. The train would crash and I would die.

Anything other than silence or darkness is an affront. No senses bring anything but neutrality or pain now. The door creaking open could lead to broken bones. Taste could lead to urine-stained food, a penis, a finger, anything they feel it would be funny to see me lick. A gentle touch could lead to my finger nails being pulled out. I can do nothing.

I still hope. When Moriarty is not playing with me, I drift in a sleep-like state. I dream. Though I am always physically aware of hanging, of having no control, I am mentally in a world where this never happened, one where I do not exist. And whenever Moriarty comes close to me, I make a request of my hope.

"Kill me" I ask.

Though my voice no longer sounds like my own, when I ask him that it is the only time I feel in control, when I feel like my thoughts are my own, when I feel I am begging for something that I want.

Light is what's in my nightmares: light touching the sweat on Moriarty's face, so I see the shining grin, the perfect suit, the man who has taken away who I am. My body – no, this body that is attached to me but no longer is my own, no longer does anything without Moriarty's, permission – revealed: the bruises, the damage, the use as anything but a human. Whether I'm blindfolded or the lights are off, my nerves will no longer tell me: I have seen nothing since Sherlock's determined expression before the projector went black.

A man steps into the room, the door creaks and slams behind him – the same tone every time. I wonder what else they can do without killing me, but I don't believe they'll ever run out. Two pinches tell me electrodes are being attached, though I can't tell where on my body. There is a hum of power, and I shake and rattle. I shake from fear. I rattle from electricity. Not enough to kill me completely, just enough to bring me close. I'll never get used to the pain, when my whole abused body is turned to lava and yet I live.

And suddenly it is all over. I am left to pant, hanging. There is a drip drip drip from my body, blood or spit or sweat. I don't know.

"Kill me."

"Oh Johnny, you little dreamer."

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><p>I think I am dying. Moriarty must have finally gone too far. There is light, there is noise and there is too much. Is this death?<p>

My arms are no longer connected to the chains. Hanging by my sides they feel like they are going to fall out of their sockets. My knees hit something.

Suddenly so many sensations, but so soft I can barely feel them. My whole body is a mass of feeling, but I can distinguish one from the rest. A hand, familiar but I don't understand how, around mine. Cold. Thin. Soothing. Something moving up and down my thumb, stroking, until that is all I can think about, and I cling onto that as I dream - for the first time in too long I have a hope other than death.

It is like I have emerged from a deep lake. I can suddenly hear again. Words I have not heard in a long time and voices I have not heard in longer.

And, finally, light.

An explosion of red, pulsating colour, black shapes, whiteness.

And a pair of eyes.

"John," says the red below the eyes.

Suddenly there is a lot of shouting. The man who will not leave my side leans over further. I can feel his heat.

"Move away-"

"Lestrade, _no__._ He's doing it wrong-"

"Stand back!"

The eyes do not stand back; they keep staring, shining; they keep blinking.

"Sherlock!"

_Sherlock._ I know it's a word that I love even if I'm not sure entirely sure what it means.

"John!"

The pain is too much then. Though my brain will not tell me where it's from it's everything I know, except those blue eyes, which I can do nothing but stare at. And they, too, don't stop staring at me.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Um gosh that took a ninety degree turn. I am not entirely sure where that horror came from within my brain. And despite the smile at the end, I hate fics where the victim recovers in an instant – so obviously John has been through absolute hell and that is not going to be an easy place to get out of. To be honest I think this only has a few chapters left.**

**With the whole anger John had over Sherlock's choice, obviously that anger is a not a priority for him right now, but that will be addressed.**

**Well I hope you enjoyed and I can only beg pitifully for reviews given that chapter was so long in coming. Found it very hard to motivate myself recently, but I've planned the next few chapters out so hopefully here we go. Thank you for reviews though! I hope I replied to all of them. I do intend to. And thank you for reading ahhhhhh**

**Obviously any reviews are very much appreciated and really do help me write**


	6. finally awake

Blind, animal panic. A disconnected area of my brain that whispers that _it is okay, it is over, you are safe_, is strangled.

_It's okay-_

The chains are on me again, gripping me, back when I thought they had gone.

_It is over-_

I do not scream. I am too well-trained for that, but my breath burns like fire as it chokes the shouts back down.

_You are safe-_

There is no hope. The world is not what I thought it was. I am no longer me.

"GET THEM _OFF _HIM-"

The chains break and my arms fall - onto what I don't know because I can barely feel anymore. I don't know what 'them' or who 'him' is, but the voice sounds angrier than I've ever heard. I wonder what's going to happen to me.

"Get _out._"

I want to comply, but I can't move. There's noise – words, footsteps, people rushing (presumably out) and I wonder what for. I am completely still, playing dead for anything but complete compliance, complete lack of individual thought or control, warrants pain. Quickly, the noise fades into the sound of breathing (not my own; I am too well-trained for that) which soon too fades into silence. I must be alone. I sigh.

"John? Can you hear me?"

I tense.

"It's okay."

This voice, though, does not sound threatening.

"John, it's okay…"

This voice one is new, but at the same time so, so old.

"It is over…"

What's over?

"You are safe. I'm here."

Do not give me hope for it to be ripped away along with the part of me that dares to do just that.

"Open your eyes."

Open my eyes? I didn't realise that was an option. I've assumed that all this time I've been blindfolded. The darkness is a lifetime. I want to see, but surely opening my eyes will only lead to the loss of my eyes.

"Please –give me something… "

I don't trust the weakness in the voice. I've come into contact with nothing that doesn't lash out. A trap (I'm used to traps).

"I know you're awake."

Letting them do what they want, will end it sooner.

"Just open them. Nothing else. I must know…"

I don't always fight back but my sight seems so integral to my old life. Though I can barely remember it, it's an image of me before I was sub-human. Losing my eyes is losing yet another connection, maybe the last, to when I knew what freedom was.

"Please."

I cannot stop myself flinching violently, though I've long learnt to muffle a reaction when I'm physically hurt. A _plea_, but this one I believe: it sounds more like me when I beg to be killed, powerless, than when Jim Moriarty fakes begging. Like when he ironically asks if I'm willing to suck him off - to remind me that he doesn't need to. It gives him power, a sense of fun to the peaks that only he can experience when inflicting torture and, most of all, giving me a flash of hope that he can crush. Sugar makes the poison taste worse when it finally comes.

The world is blossoming into existence. I do not understand why there isn't blackness: white walls, the first things I see, throb. A small table to my left, barely visible under a plethora of bows and boxes, cards, flowers. My skin, as bright as the table next to me. So much colour. Machinery beeps beside me; IVs are in my arm; I am on a bed. Instead of the chains that I had thought, there are unclasped Velcro hand restraints attached to the bedposts. And to my right, there is a man in black and a navy scarf, perched so far forward on the chair he might fall. Maybe they are letting me see pleasantries so I experience what I am going to lose.

Why am I not hanging from the ceiling? Or curled on the floor? Or in a cage that crushes me to smaller than I can be?

I am in a hospital, part of my brain says but I don't know how it's true. I wonder where the nurses are, the doctors - but I had forgotten that there are no doctors in Moriarty's world that are not chained up. Hospitals are an unwanted rusty relic that somehow survived from the life I don't think of. For some reason, I know the machines and needles and drugs held within them and with that I know the range of torture Moriarty can create from in here.

"Thank you John."

The man sitting next to me is talking. It's the voice that asked me to open my eyes. My gaze moves up him until it rests on his. Rests, sleeps, relaxes because for the first time I can remember I feel truly at peace. They are the eyes I saw before in a dream (or not, I don't know, for maybe I'm still dreaming), and they are just as blue as before. He puts his hand on mine now, carefully, as if me meeting his gaze gave him permission to do so, but he is still weary. They are so warm I barely flinch. Barely, but I do.

He removes his hand from mine, and holds both of them up, raising them very slowly. Not once does his gaze leave my own. His expression seems soft, as do his hands; they cannot be the hands that brought me nothing but pain, littering my body with crimes and unraveling my sanity. The thin fingers, frozen in the sunlight, are too delicate. They look like fingers that would nimbly unlock my chains rather than binding me in them. I am too exhausted, too desperate now, to consider whether this comfort is a trap. I just want his hand around mine. Like a mind-reader, he complies. The feeling is strong and unmoving, and reminds me of days I had forced myself to forget, though I don't quite know why.

Guns, skulls and canes-

Rotting experiments, crime scenes and chasing taxis-

The snap of a dark coat through the alley ways of London, the whispers of suspicion as we stand too close to each other, the half-smile for me and the half-frown for the rest of the world-

A hand, wrapped around my own, anchoring me to reality as the horrors explode, red and leering, in my mind. The blue eyes, shining in the darkness, waiting for me when I finally awake. The trickle of a tear that is quickly wiped away.

I do not realise my eyes are closed until he brushes my cheek. When I open them, he is removing his thumb, which is tipped with a single tear, my tear, glistening until he closes it in his palm. Blue eyes shine back at me.

"Sherlock," I say, my mouth hanging slightly open even after I finish the word.

This time it's not just a familiar sound tinged with affection; I know exactly what it means and I can pinpoint the reason for every emotion I feel with it. The memories are sharp and painful after being numbed for so long but they are beautiful as well, like cold water after a fever. I am finally awake.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Okay I kept the line in but I did not mean for it to be so full of innuendo**

**"it sounds more like me when I beg to be killed than when James Moriarty ironically asks if I'm willing to suck him off - to remind me that he doesn't need to. It gives him power, a sense of fun to the peaks that only he can experience when inflicting torture and, most of all, one flash of hope in my eyes to be crushed_. Sugar makes the poison taste worse when it finally comes."_**

**When it _comes_? Taste? What the hell was I thinking?**

**I just couldn't get rid of it though.**

**Er, hope you enjoyed! Sorry we still haven't got that far into John and Sherlock actually talking. It just seemed a good place to end. I wrote that far more quickly than expected, though I'm not sure when the next one will be up because I have exams etc. Thank you so so much for all your lovely responses! Really appreciated.**


	7. an effort to connect to reality

_I do not realise my eyes are closed until he brushes my cheek. When I open them, he is removing his thumb, which is tipped with a single tear, my tear, glistening until he closes it in his palm. Blue eyes shine back at me._

_"Sherlock," I say, my mouth hanging slightly open even after I finish the word._

_This time it's not just a familiar sound tinged with affection; I know exactly what it means and I can pinpoint the reason for every emotion I feel with it. The memories are sharp and painful after I have been numbed for so long. They are beautiful, though, like cold water after a fever. I am finally awake._

* * *

><p>Sherlock is upon me like a caged animal that has just been let free. He is leaning over me, hands either side of my temple, looking at me like he's never seen me before, eyes scraping out every detail, and I wonder what's happened over the last few days (weeks? Months?) in hospital to illicit that reaction.<p>

"John?"

I can feel my heart banging, like it's the first time anyone's said my name, like, somewhere buried so deep I didn't realise it, I had been scared that I would be too changed to be recognised as John. I can hear it banging too – literally, through the beeping of the monitors.

The nurse pops her head around the door. "Is everything okay?"

Sherlock blinks, like he has just been slapped. Then he seems to collect himself, and breathes out deeply, before taking his hands away from me to walk around the end of the bed. They itch by his sides. He never stops looking at me as he stands, his body staying on that one spot but giving off the air of great energy and movement.

"Fine," he says.

"I heard the monitors." The nurse is by my side now, glancing at Sherlock. "Did anything happen?"

I do not find it embarrassing that the heart monitors went off, revealing whatever deep, pacing emotion I feel when Sherlock is around; what could embarrass me now? What is embarrassment? I'm just relieved that enough emotion remains to make my heart beat faster. I realise the nurse is still looking at me. I minutely shake my head.

"Are you sure? I-"

She reaches out her hand.

"Don't," says Sherlock suddenly.

I look at the nurse, who is frowning, and drawing back her hand.

"Don't touch him."

"I…" she says. Sherlock simply narrows his eyes in challenge. She hesitates, open-mouthed, but let's her hand swing by her side. "It's good you're finally fully conscious. You've been with us for eight days now."

It is just a number. Attaching any length of time to it reduces it to a manageable concept, but it will never be manageable to me: that experience was another dimension. Time may have still existed in this world, but it did not exist in that one.

"How are you feeling?"

I nod.

"You're feeling well?"

I nod.

She also nods.

Sherlock is the only room who isn't nodding.

Eventually, after taking notes, the nurse leaves promising to send a doctor in soon.

Sherlock stands at the end of my bed, still, staring at me long after the nurse has left.

"You're safe."

Suddenly, this is not Sherlock, this is a man who states the obvious. I say nothing, and do nothing. Sherlock is lost for words, and I don't know what to do.

In the silence, I am very aware of the new contours of my body that I haven't explored before. It all feels so raw. So many lumps and bruises and places I can't touch. I didn't feel it before, and though I know it's to do with a hormone I don't care for what. Somewhere in my brain is the scientific answer, but it's in a place that I've forgotten.

"John?"

I look up at the spluttering man and wonder if this is the Sherlock that rampaged through my numbed brain ten minutes ago, an undeniable memory. Perhaps that memory was false: the Sherlock that shot the walls when he was bored, had patience for no one and nothing, whirled off around London and either I caught up or didn't. No waiting.

"John?"

I close my eyes, and as I fall asleep, once again I feel his hand on mine.

* * *

><p>Every time I wake up now I think I'm back there, in the dungeons, chained up and choking until –through Sherlock's shouts, an arm round me, my repeated name – I slowly realise where I am. Often though, that is long after my whole body is shaking, my suppressed scream has left my throat hoarse, and my body is covered in sweat. It is always the same blue eyes that greet me and, it is almost like we are back in Baker Street and Sherlock has drawn me once again safely from a nightmare. Apart from now, I never feel safe. This trauma has an edge that is much more permanent; I am not sure I ever really left Hell.<p>

I vaguely remember when I first opened my eyes, after however long it was, and I smiled at Sherlock; he was the first thing to greet me, and he was the representation of everything I had lost. No wonder I smiled: I could finally reach my old self. He is impossible to touch though. Now my senses and reasoning is returning, I see that Sherlock is also lost. My brain, remembering again and again the Hell that I endured in sleep, has left even the sight of Sherlock's face tinged so I am never sure that it and the happy emotions that rise to my throat in association are real. Sherlock, though, despite this, is always by my side. What is there left in me to be devoted to?

How many days have I been here now? The evidence is that they've passed, but I do not feel it. Life has been a haze of Sherlock's gaze asking so many questions that I have had to turn away, keep my mouth shut, because if it opens then the outpour, the flood through the collapsing damn, will break me. It seems as if I am watching the world like a film: disconnected, involved emotionally but unable to act. I'm not with the John that Sherlock so obviously loves. I don't know who he is.

I wake up, the same never-dampening fear as I check my surrounding, as unexpected light blinds, as I realise where I am. My hand stretches for Sherlock's but it's not there. I look to my right. Lestrade, a man from another life, is sat there, head tilted and beard grey.

"John," he says softly. "Can you hear me?"

I simply blink at Lestrade. He leans in, his hand momentarily flinching towards mine and I think he's going to put it on mine like Sherlock would but he seems to decide against it and it lies it on the bed.

I have not spoken much. In fact, in my waking hours only a couple of words: 'Sherlock' and 'window'. I cannot know what leaves my mouth when sleeping - though from Sherlock's face, which distorts my own horror like a reflection in a whirling pond, I probably speak a lot in my sleep. This surprises me (I am well-trained) but I suppose that now the blindfold, the chains and the gag have been removed, the uproar that I have been choking down has been unleashed in words and noises that are only animal.

Obviously, Lestrade doesn't know this. I look past Lestrade and through window. I asked for them to move my bed so I could face it - an effort to connect with reality: the lonely red post box on the corner of the street, the old woman that passes it every day posting a casual letter like an afterthought, a perm so bouncy and wild it is uncontained by her headscarf, the cars that occasionally splash puddles on her, and first the trickle, then the rapids, of children making their way to school, the man who walks his dogs or his dog walks him I'm not so sure, the traffic, the groups of teenagers at night and the lone joggers before, once again, the early morning sun sends them all to bed, sunset and sunrise, the houses and trees whose leaves are turning gold and red; the pocket of the world outside my window, which carries on even though my own world is gone. I am still not sure I believe it. How can that basement and this exist in the same world? Is it the same world?

"Sherlock is with his brother," Lestrade explains, as if the two are having a family catch-up, and I will believe it. "The doctors are pleased with your progress," as if I haven't heard it all too many times. "Especially the broken ribs, which could have punctured a lung." I sense Lestrade smiling nervously, but I cannot be bothered to move my head. "Though of course you're the medical man. You understand this stuff more than me."

I don't think I do. I think all understanding, all curiosity and all past knowledge has been irreparably damaged. Apart from everything to do with Sherlock; he is the only thing I have here, and I can't even reach him. Only his shell.

"John?" he asks gently.

A question, perhaps, but not one worth answering. No, I don't think I am John. Not really.

"Can you remember what happened?"

His voice is very quiet; urgent; like he in the climax of a film.

"Anything?"

I'm not sure. I have memories, but are they what happened? How can I ever know if they are the full story?

"John. Look at me…"

I finally heave my gaze over to him, and suddenly it is effortless to look into his eyes. Full of grey hope. Watching me, the damaged me, and still thinking I can be fixed.

"Please speak to me."

Why am I not speaking? It feels like once I speak that everything will be proven a lie, and will be slammed back into that dungeon.

"I c-cannot imagine what you went through, but if I trust one person to get through it, it's you. We will get you through this. I promise you that. And you will get yourself through it."

The words move to silence though I'm not sure how, or when. Lestrade morphs to Sherlock. And a hand is once again on mine. Through drugs, and a world I can no longer connect with, I see a purple blur on a knuckle. Sherlock has punched someone. I know exactly what that looks like.

Opening my eyes happens suddenly, and thankfully I am not shaking with fear, and Sherlock comes to me in clarity, looking mildly surprised and even more pleased.

"You're doing... well."

He finishes his sentence awkwardly, like it was a sudden decision to comfort me and his statement was originally going to lead to something else completely; somewhere, no doubt, that might upset me. For Sherlock, the man who can't censor, to attempt to protect me now I take as insult. He may not know what happened but surely he can _deduce_ that there is no point protecting me from anything; why protect something that is irreparable?

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Sorry this chapter hasn't seen leaps and bounds in John's and Sherlock's conversation. I'm trying to make it natural, and I think at this stage John will still be fairly non-speaking. But all your unanswered questions about what _actually_ happened between Sherlock and Moriarty, how John was saved etc. will be answered. John will remember about Sherlock's Choice at one point.**

**Though I know the more-or-less arching plot of this fic, the individual chapters etc I make up as I go along. It's odd. The whole feel of the fic is therefore dependent on what mood I'm in when I write each chapter. Though I do think this fic will be longer than I anticipated. I just cannot rush John's recovery. It's such a delicate thing.**

**Thank you for all your lovely responses! Any feedback on this chapter would very much (of course, as always) be appreciated and replied to, but I'm not really sure how I feel about this chapter so it would be even more welcome.**


	8. guilt

I think there is someone speaking. I open my eyes blearily. Lestrade is sitting by my bedside, in work clothes, conversing with a doctor who I've seen many times but don't know the name of. Lestrade looks towards me, and the doctor follows his gaze.

"Oh, you're awake." The doctor, a smiling woman, moves slightly towards me as she speaks. "How are you feeling?"

The world is just shifting into focus. I just nod.

"Good. We're very pleased with you, physically. Your stiches are healing well, however…"

I don't listen. I don't care. She's describing someone else's injuries, someone else's body, someone else's mind. My eyes just move to Lestrade, until I know she has left.

"What is wrong with Sherlock?"

Lestrade glances to the side, like a naughty school boy. "More than usual, you mean?"

I cannot be bothered to smile.

"Look, John … He needs you. And you need him. And you two…well you aren't complete without each other are you really? John I know you can get through this. You were gone for eight weeks, and he took it... I can talk to him, if you like..."

I shake my head.

* * *

><p>"Don't protect me, Sherlock."<p>

Sherlock raises an eyebrow. I have just woken up, and I found him sitting by me. I did not care to stop the words slipping out of my mouth. The fact that I have suddenly decided to speak surprises even me. Something in Sherlock not being Sherlock roused some deep- hibernated emotion within me. One that I cannot pinpoint, but it makes my heart beat like it does at the flick of knife, and it makes me shake like I'm starved, and it makes my fists clench like they are bound. The body signs are fear, but this emotion is not fear. It's something I've forgotten. I know how my voice sounds. It sounds like pain. My voice, speaking words that I have not been forced to speak, feels new, and I want to use it.

There is an exhale, through Sherlock's open mouth. He quickly closes it. I know it's more than him not wanting to hurt me (perhaps not that at all): it's as if to cling onto our old relationship, he ventures into his very much unchartered zone of tact, just in case I had changed and no longer dealt with his bluntness. He opens his mouth, before once again closing it.

"Oh, "I say, "because my ordinary mind can't cope-"

"John!"

I jump, very slightly. For the first time since he lifted me from Hell, Sherlock is Sherlock again. He has raised his voice. His face is wrinkled in disgust It feels good. Then, as if collecting himself (not like he is censoring, rather like he's correcting), the features deflate and his lips part so the next words can only be spoken gently.

"Do not _ever_ refer to yourself as ordinary again."

There is a shifting silence, but Sherlock stares into my gaze, hotly, the type of concentration he only gives to a case. I just nod, and swallow, unsure how else to react. Unsure if I trust myself to act in any other way, to show something that is hiding, even from me. Still though, he seems to be different, softer, like he is edging around me. I find my breathing increase. If there is one person I need now, it is Sherlock - with a quick flick of an eyebrow to fling me back into the snug nest that I had been so comfortable with, home. How could I ever expect our relationship to be the same? Even now I feel the memories of that time creasing my thoughts until the old me is unreadable, so deep now that, however much I ignore them, some instinct tells me that they will rip. The instinct is from the doctor days I know I had, like I know the list of plays of an actor from his biography on the programme, rather than any personal connection with the fact. To feel disconnected from oneself is to be disconnected from everything. Originally, when I woke up, Sherlock sucked all the clarity from everything else until he had it all. I knew every detail of his face, his manner, his personality, him. Now, though, he too is fading: like the last scrap of paper that the spread of water has finally reached.

* * *

><p>I open my eyes. Sherlock is not there. Lestrade is. Mycroft is by the window, using his umbrella and long legs to create impressive angles. I ask where Sherlock is. Lestrade says nothing. I ask where Sherlock is again. I try to sit up and I can feel my scars tense, the one particularly bad one down my side almost feels like it is ripping. I am reaching forward, but Lestrade's hand is suddenly splayed on my chest. I am screeching Sherlock's name.<p>

"He'll be back, John. He's just-"

"Don't lie, Lestrade."

Lestrade's eyes are on me, panicked, though I'm not sure why.

"He's left me... I knew... He's left me..."

The words come out as coherently as my thoughts.

"John!"

Then I ran out breath.

I am a pet. On a leash. A little Johnny Boy. Little cock. Little mind. Little-

"Oh, Johnny."

Jim rips off my trousers. The slash of a blade, the drip drip drip constant drip drip drip of a broken drain, counting my own drip to madness, white teeth of a smile, red lips, and a finger on my chin tilting my head up-

"Hello again, Johnny boy."

Breath, hot and alive, on my cheek, cold and dead.

"Did you miss me?"

Suddenly, my eyes are bolted shut like I am, once again, in chains and blindfolded and I am trapped and I am held from the ceiling like a fish twisting in a net-

And I thrash like one-

"_John_!"

I need Sherlock but he, the one person who can get me through this, is gone. The world rocks back and forth.

I am shaking. I am shaking. I am shaking.

I am nothing but an earthquake.

Uncontrollable.

"You are in Mycroft's hospital."

Sherlock?

"You are with me. I will never let him touch you again- Can you hear me?"

A hand cups my chin, and I don't want to affirm that yes I can hear him because maybe it will stop. Maybe he will be proven unreal. Maybe he will dissolve into nothingness.

"John?"

And the breath of his words is close to my ear, as if they are private thoughts, only meant for me, and they are all I know.

"Look at me."

I open my eyes, and he is there. Really there. Sherlock.

"Speak to me."

Behind Sherlock is Mycroft still, leaning against the wall. Lestrade has gone. I glance down. Mycroft has a bloody knuckle, and a slowly reddening eye. I glance at Sherlock. Sherlock has a bruised lip, and a bruised knuckle to match Mycroft's. For the second time since I've seen him. My mind flashes, like a roulette machine, red, black, red, black, the ball spinning over an overwhelming number of possibilities until, teasingly hovering between two spots, it lands with a thump, loud enough that I flinch. Now I know this is real. It is bad enough to be so.

"You want to leave me."

Sherlock's whole expression changes. He deflates. His hand leaves my face, and his mouth opens and then closes, like a vulnerable child. Reduced to a diluted version of his twelve year old self.

"You were trying to leave. Mycroft stopped you."

"Yes," says Mycroft.

Sherlock looks at me with questioning eyebrows, before walking towards the window with his back turned, obviously not going to speak anymore.

"My brother gets odd ideas sometimes."

Sherlock turns around so suddenly the air whips my cheek. He faces Mycroft, angrier than I have ever seen him. It makes Mycroft look like the younger brother.

"How can you not understand, Mycroft?"

He takes deep breaths, like he wants to say something more, but turns towards the window again instead, hands together, pretending to have their old poise but the fingers shake.

"Mycroft…" I say blankly. I am blank. "Let him leave"

"Oh _yes_, so you can both fester apart. My little brother thinks he knows what is best and, as always when it comes to decisions regarding himself, is wrong. I'll leave you two to talk it over."

Mycroft hooks the door handle with his umbrella and swings his way out the room.

Sherlock stands by the window for a long time. I have nothing to do but watch as his shaking resides, until he is (almost) completely still. After a while, I decide to speak.

"If you can't be yourself around me anymore then…"

"This is not about me." Sherlock is still facing the window. "Please don't think I am that remarkably selfish...I don't _want_ to leave you. I had to."

He lowers his hands, before finally turning on his heel to face me, and sitting on the chair next to my bed, the one he always sits on - his chair.

"Just be yourself-"

"Rude? Blunt? The very man that put you in the situation you are now in?"

Sherlock closes his eyes tight.

"How do you not see?" He opens them. A flash of blue. "Moriarty will come after me! That's the reason why he ever got to you in the first place! I cannot be around you."

When he talked it was as if he had come to the conclusion of a case, but one that has been more confusing, more frustrating, more exhilarating than all the others combined. One that involves him somehow. One that he cares about.

"It's more than that..." I say blankly. "Mycroft could protect me."

"John… How much do you remember of your time with Moriarty?"

The question is an unexpected affront. I don't want to talk. Sherlock seemed to understand this before. Maybe he hadn't wanted to talk either. He didn't force me to, or probe, or make me touch the areas of my brain I didn't want to touch. Sometimes he helped me towards the area of my brain that I want to but can't because it's no longer me. Like when he holds my hand, which seems to be always. That reminds me of human touch. Human touch that does not hurt. An action I should never, according to memory, expect from him.

Now, though: _How much do you remember of your time with Moriarty?_

"I don't want to- No-"

I shake my head.

"You don't remember how you got into this situation." Sherlock's gaze flicks between my eyes. "You don't remember," he says again, in a manner that suggests he is not used to unnecessarily repeating himself, before looking away, his gaze resting on anything other than me. His gaze is blank though, and I know he is looking through the objects in the room to a world only he can access. "That explains so much. You will though. And then you will see why it would be best if I leave."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Oh my goodness. That was a hard one to write. I have most of next chapter written so it should be up soonish. Uni has been so crazy recently, so sorry for the long time in updating. Cannot wait until free time over Christmas. ****And IT WILL HAPPEN. We will go through John's time with Moriarty in detail, and the consequences of Sherlock's Choice - I haven't forgotten that that's the name of the fic... :) Just need to sort out this whole Sherlock being weird thing through.**

**Hope you've all been well – and thank you for all support. Obligatory author goodbye/hint: reviews, alerts etc are always appreciated :)**


	9. remember

_"You don't remember how you got into this situation." Sherlock's gaze flicks between my eyes. "You don't remember," he says again, in a manner that suggests he is not used to unnecessarily repeating himself, before looking away, his gaze resting on anything other than me. His gaze is blank though, and I know he is looking through the objects in the room to a world only he can access. "That explains so much. You will though. And then you will see what exactly I have to be guilty for, and why it would be best if I leave."_

* * *

><p>It is like an electric shock. My hand jumps within Sherlock. He tightens his grip around mine. Like a parachute. Slowing down the fall. Sherlock turns his face like he has been slapped, before slowly bringing it back to me.<p>

"John…"

"What do you mean?"

"Just talk me through what happened. From the beginning."

"It was- M-Mor- Moriarty. He kidnapped me."

"And after that?"

I squeeze my eyes shut, against what I am not sure. It is then I remember Sherlock's face on the projector. I remember him screaming my name. I remember the pain and sickness of Moriarty fondling me in front of him. Sherlock and Moriarty talking, though I cannot understand what they're saying. Most of all, I remember buzzing hope rising within me: Sherlock's face was in the wall in front of me; I could literally see hope. The discomfort, the pain, the exposure was something I could defeat. With him. I remember with a clarity I had forgotten existed. I start shaking. Sherlock grips my hand a little tighter.

"Okay, John. Okay…Don't force the memories."

I open my eyes.

"Hope. I remember hope. I thought it would be all over… But it can't have been. Why can't I _remember_?"

Sherlock is staring at my hand, in particular his thumb's progress of tracing a circle delicately around a cut on it (I don't remember the origin of the cut).

"Where did the hope go?"

His eyes meet mine so quickly, he must have known exactly where I was looking despite all concentration being on his thumb.

"You weren't there anymore," I say, as if the answer has been there all my life.

"Why?"

There is a tremor in Sherlock's voice. His equivalent of his head dissolving dissolve into his hands, or, propelled by a sharp intake of breath, jumping up and stalking out the room, or throwing something in a fit of anger. Any shake is an earthquake for Sherlock. My body, though, is changing more obviously, and I know is Sherlock is noticing everything: sweat increasing, eyes darting, fingers ever slightly shaking. Animal instincts. This conversation will hurt: flight or flight?

"P-please- Don't…"

Sherlock stays silent. No doubt he can tell that the memories are coming, despite the fact I don't want them to. By the twitch of my hand (_him, deflated, on the projector, telling me about a train_), the flickering of my eyelids (_that will be blown up_) and by the sudden inhale of breath (_so I don't die_). By the sudden collapse in on myself. Sherlock's choice.

"No- Sher-"

I take great, gasping breaths, as I collapse into him. He is my bed, his lap my pillow.

I wince. "H-how could you…how could you?"

My eyes darting from his in a blur, because he had chosen me over those people

"Now you know." A soft calm voice above me, nestling my hair. "It was my fault that y-you suffered so much. I am so sorry…John." A voice that has barely ever tasted apology, but it's bitter now.

We sit in silence, before the tears come. When they end, I am too exhausted to lift myself up from Sherlock's lap. I know I am still weak: every time I've moved since I've been in hospital, Sherlock has sent me angry glances, but I've numb to the pain of the injuries and, whenever doctor reads them out, numb to what they actually are. That numbness has gone now. The blank emotion. Now, now I know that other people have suffered. Died. I can feel the physical injury. It's like I have broken through the surface of a lake. My senses are no longer muffled.

"You…"

I begin, but I cannot finish the sentence out loud, only in my head.

_…killed all those people_. _So the skeletal silhouette of the person I once was could continue to almost live._

Bile rises to my throat.

"Sherlock- I am-"

**-**_a soldier. This is what I have been fighting against: injustice. But now I am the sole cause._

I itch to hurt, physically, cut or something, for a blast – like ice water, cleansing.

"You chose-"

_-to kill hundreds of people in the tube, hands clasped for a job interview, or to hold their children's fingers or to inspect the flower their partner had just left there-_

"-with an explosion that unclasped their hands-"

"John, what are you talking about?"

-_and their reality. And then what they knew, held, were, was nothing._

"I've forgotten…I've forgotten how to live. Why the _hell_ did you choose me?"

The world stops - at least it looks that way to Sherlock. He looks as though as he is lost in time. I let the words thrash into him, let them play their effect, and just watch. He blinks a few times, quickly like he is trying to see through stinging water, before resting his hands together. Finally, his eyes move and his gaze connects with mine; time rushes to catch up.

"You thought…" he said slowly, "that I would ever kill all those people? I was never going to let Moriarty dictate the game like that."

"What? I can't-"

"Please, remember that Mycroft is my brother. And though most people disagree, you of all know that I am not a…" Sherlock falters here, like he is accessing a part of himself that he does not ever talk about "…a…robot."

"But-"

Sherlock is strong on me again, as agitated - more so - as when he can't solve a case.

"Mycroft – rather those he tyrannically enslaves - tracked down the train, disabled the bomb, before ensuring the news of a train crash spread to Moriarty through the reliable, trivial gossip of the human population."

There is no hand on mine, perhaps Sherlock thinks I will flinch.

There is silence for a few moments, and I wonder if I am expected to fill it, though I don't trust myself to speak. Or know what to say. Thankfully, Sherlock's mouth opens again.

"But it was that choice, saving that train load of _other_ people, which ensured Moriarty took revenge. He was obsessed with me to a degree I had not deduced. And with him he had my...he had... he had _you_. John. He had you. He took his anger with me out on you. He got revenge on me through you."

The shadows under Sherlock's eyes are so heavy his whole face has deflated under the weight of them. The white of his skin so empty that it lets no other colour exist. His eyes follow me until I am lying back on the pillows, never leaving where the stitches on my stomach, which he of course knows the exact location of.

"I am sorry, John."

Sherlock's breath is hot like Moriarty's, but it's like a blanket after a storm, not the burning tongue of fire. He must be very close. I can barely think now, my hand too entwined with Sherlock's own. Our hands together fit like jigsaw pieces. In this new world, I've found it's the only thing that does fit.

"You didn't kill them?" I say, though it's barely audible.

"I didn't kill them."

All the tears have been drawn out of me. I feel empty and dry. Like a vacuum.

"But I understand if you want me to leave… I endangered your life. I make very few mistakes, and to make one regarding…." He pauses, as if searching for a word big enough "…_you_. And…About what you said, earlier. That you've forgotten how to live. You taught me once how to do so. Well I'll try to reteach… though it'll be rather like a student teaching a professor," he adds quietly.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Oh my goodness an update in under a week!**

**So sorry for being an angst _whore_.**

**Hope you all enjoyed - and please tell me your thoughts! Thank you for reading :)**


	10. untangle

_All the tears have been drawn out of me. I feel empty and dry. Like a vacuum._

_"But I understand if…if you want me to leave… I endangered your life. I make very few mistakes, and to make one regarding…." He pauses, as if searching for a word big enough "…you. And…__About what you said, earlier. That you've forgotten how to live. You taught me once how to do so. Well if you don't want me to go I'll try to reteach… though it'll be rather like a student teaching a professor," he adds quietly._

* * *

><p>I wake up to arguing.<p>

"Therapists are idiots. They remove happiness from the world, not increase-"

Sherlock's voice stops barely a second after I wake up. I haven't even opened my eyes, and he's noticed that I am once again conscious. In a flinch of my hand? The quickness of my breath? Just a sense of it? Though Sherlock never just senses. I open my eyes. As always, everyone facing me. Mycroft is standing in his apparently favourite spot by the window, leaning in a bored fashion. Sherlock is, as always, sitting on the chair.

"Morning John," says Mycroft. "It's only 1 out of 5 times of you waking that I can actually say that."

"I don't want a therapist," is all I can think to say; it's all I care about. Give me one thing, to not be forced to re-examine memories, and I will not complain.

Mycroft rolls his eyes. "The victim is always wrong in these things. I don't listen to people who are wrong. If you haven't noticed, John, you are in my hospital and I can do what I want – which happens to be giving you a therapist."

Sherlock is very still. "A therapist won't _work_."

"Hm. Sherlock, you are not the person I would counsel when it comes to human emotion."

"Neither are you, Mycroft. So let's counsel the only one out of the three of us that can categorically say he knows what the word friend means. John?"

"I don't want a therapist."

"Oh, what a surprise! Well that solves that problem." Sherlock turns to Mycroft. "Now leave us. Don't you have a war or something to lie to the British population about? Don't keep them waiting."

Mycroft face contorts. "Don't make my job double, Sherlock. Tracking the lives of you _and _Doctor Watson may take up my time enough to put the country in jeopardy."

"Judging by your left sleeve, it already has."

Mycroft ignores him. "Hm…_You_ could be John's therapist. In search of a better word. In search of a word that's not an antonym of you."

I raise my eyebrows and, without really remembering what it means, the corners of my mouth twitch. "Are you serious?"

Sherlock's eyes are on me. "I see you haven't lost your sense of humour," he says quietly. "Mycroft, though, you've never had one, or I believe wanted one. Why try now?"

"You need all the help you can get right now, don't you dear brother? John is my chosen cure. You've made John happier before," says Mycroft. "In return, he did the same to you and, by extension, me. It lessens my work load when you have a babysitter, Sherlock."

Sherlock suddenly stands up.

"Get out," he says, quietly but Mycroft's reaction to it – the tightening of fist on cane; shadows on brow darkening; mouth clenching – is a reaction more appropriate after a shout. "Get _out_."

"This is my hospital, Sherlock."

"This is John's room. There's some law thing about privacy, isn't there? _Leave _Mycroft-"

"Very well, dear brother. But this is _not _a place where you can avoid me."

I can feel Mycroft smirking. Mycroft's smirks almost give off their own body heat. I ignore it; the only cure. Mycroft gives us both one more glance, before leaving the room.

Sherlock hesitates a minute, one of his fists clenching and unclenching, before moving to my side.

"John, I trust you are physically well enough to pack?" He eyes the clipboard at the end of my bed. "Unless the doctor's here are as unskilled as the rest of Mycroft's minions."

"Sherlo-"

"But you're a doctor. I trust you to treat yourself more than them. If you think you're well enough to pack? No? I'll…" He grabs my nightshirt from the dresser, and stuffs it in his coat pocket. "What else will you be needing…"

"Sherlock! Look! Sherlock. No don't. I don't want to go back to Baker Street, yet…"

"We can go anywhere, somewhere safe. Away from Mycroft. I'll hire a-"

"Sherlock! I hate it here as much as you. But maybe… you know, maybe Mycroft is right." Sherlock suddenly looks up. "Look I don't mean about everything…"

"He trivialised what happened! He wants you better so you can be there for me! And you're trivialising it too."

"I'm not…I'm not. I just don't see why it needs…all this. Come on, Sherlock- When have you ever been morally enraged?"

"HE WANTS YOU OUT THERE JOHN!" He points to the window, his face screwed up. "You can't- You cannot-"

Sherlock lowers himself into the chair.

"Out there, with _me_, is what got you hurt in the first place."

I rub my eyes. With Sherlock, comes emotion, clarity. I can now feel how twisted I am inside. For once, Sherlock is the one who feels and I am the one who is reminded how to.

"You said," my voice sounds as faint as an echo. "You'd teach me how to live again."

I'm not sure I want him to do this though, reteach.

"It hurts so much."

I didn't mean to say that.

Though my gaze rests on my trembling hands, I can still see Sherlock rubbing his eyes and leaning back in his chair. Though many people would say that this is not Sherlock, it's the Sherlock I remember craving to know, the one that he's not even aware of. And now I've got him, I don't know what to do with him.

"Earlier," I continue, my instincts and not my reasoning leading my voice, "whenever that was, with you…was the- the first time I've actually talked about anything that happened with, um. You're the only one I don't feel pitied by."

"Pity is not the word for it, certainly."

I'm not sure what that means

"You could leave you know," I say in the only response that's true. "Go home."

I know enough about the twists inside me to know that I don't want that, but also to know that no one, especially not a man who could be solving international smuggling plots or breaking his way into Downing Street, would want to try to untangle them, if they could.

"No I couldn't. To what?"

"Your life. Annoying everyone, solving mysteries…amazing everyone."

"You were the only one I ever amazed."

"That's not true-"

"I count amazement as more than amusement over a freakish circus trick. You're the only one who qualifies for that. And says so."

"Long wait," I say. "You'll be bored. You need mysteries."

"I need_ you._

I look away, much as I would have before the incident. But now it's for a different emotion. Not embarrassment, or even being emotionally touched – though they both take their part. I'm looking away because I can't meet someone's eye when I will let them down. He needs me, and I've forgotten what me is.

"You're quite enough to untangle," Sherlock finishes, and I don't think he realises what he just said.

"So will you be my therapist?"

"In want of a better word?"

"A much better word."

"An antonym? Something that involves eventually running round London? After being stuck here talking for a bit?"

"One more like that, yes."

"I did tell you were anything but ordinary."

Sherlock stands up, and we both glance down as my nightshirt falls out of his pocket. A snort escapes one of us. I'm not sure which.

"I pack my own things though."

"Yes," says Sherlock, staring at my nightshirt as if willing it to pick itself up.

"I think you as my um…therapist might be the only thing that will work," I say and I think, for a moment, we both believe it.

Sherlock's expression is not quite a smile, but it could be mistaken as one.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Thank you for reading and sticking with me through this fic. I know it's not the most consistent. **

**Sorry again for the time between updates - this time though, I have an excuse traumatic enough to be legitimate. My laptop crashed - I'm sure you can all imagine the pain - and, even worse, on it had the next few chapters of this fic...So I've pieced together something roughly similar, though it's annoying because there are moments I know I was pleased with that are lost but oh welllllll.**

**Thank you, all of you - and please let me know what you think! :)**

**No idea how many chapters are left but I can imagine only a couple. **


	11. Dignity

We decide to go home. Mycroft's room is claustrophobic, and somehow I want it proven to me that there are other places in the world left.

Though Sherlock asserts that this does not mean a return to detective work, I am scared. Inside Baker Street is my mind plastered to the walls of the room: Sherlock; my work; the evidence, no doubt, of my ghost of a daily routine I followed again and again until they caught me midway as I stepped... Outside Baker Street is the very footpath where this begun. What if I had left slightly earlier? What if had walked the other way? What if I had fought harder? Sherlock says I could have done nothing to stop it.

We step out of the car that one of Mycroft's minions is driving. The pavement is solid. The air is cold. Sherlock's eyes are on me. I don't even need to nod to say I am okay. Sherlock knows. We fit now. Our edges had to melt slightly, but now we mold as well as we once did, even if it produces a slightly different shape. In front of me, is the door I have seen so many times, slammed by Sherlock, opened by Mrs. Hudson. I remember the first day I touched it, completely unaware of how important it would become. At that point, the idea that I would be living with this... undefinable man was alien and would not settle.

* * *

><p>The days pass, and I am surprised how well I am doing. I think it's because Sherlock's been too busy to ask anything more. I have been lying in his bed, very occasionally in mine, eating and reading and remembering. He has been gallivanting about, arguing with Mycroft mainly or deducing cases that people don't even know exist. Nights still plague me, but in Sherlock's bed, with Sherlock's arms and Sherlock's eyes and, more than anything, Sherlock's words to ground me back, I am reminded the day will come and with a strength that I could not produce alone, close my eyes once again to the snap of Moriarty's voice.<p>

It's the fifth day since I've been home-

_Home._

Surrounded by Sherlock's ordered chaos, my curiosity has returned and I cherish it. His case files are stacked up by his bed. Brown and solid, revealing nothing of the sharp memories within. The first one I open is before my time. My hands shake as I turn pages of Sherlock's writing. Even if it weren't scrawled, I doubt I would be able to understand it. It's full of the language of the case, inaccessible now. All details are exact: Sherlock deals in seconds, not minutes or hours. For him, the big things are the trivial, not the small. The next case is The Study in Pink, as I named it and he refused to. He has recorded it just as I remember, but included details about the body, the connections the woman had, the possible profile of the murderer, that I had not realised he had even thought about. They were all, as I have come to expect, perfect predictions. The cases take me all morning to read, including the ones that he worked on as a teenager. Even then, he was as exact as ever in the details of what he scribbled, but even messier. They were more often about his teachers or fellow students. I can't imagine him using the information for blackmail. For Sherlock, the aim was and will always be solving.

The last file in the shelf is only revealed after I have taken the others. It is shiny where his others are scruffy; white where his other are brown; but when I open it, the corners of the pages are crumbling, as if he has read it again and again. It has drops on it, water not yet evaporated from being stuck behind so many files. Or recent. Really, very recent.

My eyes fall on the first words:

_John Watson. Aged 37._

I look up, very still as if I am being hunted. I know I should not continue, but I find my eyes back on the words.

_Kidnapped at_ 8_:46, error of 2 seconds each way due to lag of security camera._

Stuck on the page, at exact right angles, are the photos that were held up to me, flashed in my face, in that basement by Sherlock on the web cam. Five men around me, my eyes squeezed shut, my arms spread wide. I am fighting, but I am losing. Another. A black van, them pushing me into it. Tiny figures on a tiny screen. It all seems so irrelevant. The men each have their height mathematically worked out in comparison to mine, their weight and shoe size estimated, possibilities of their identities proposed, edited and proposed again. I don't know their identities; I never talked directly to any of them.

There are copies of what must be the tyre marks on the road after the van left, which must have been lifted carefully. Too many details: the possible weight of the van, the type of tyre, where those types are made, their price, a transcript of a conversation with the company, a print screen of a search leading to the 57th page of Google, more transcripts of phone calls, all stuck in, all leading to the answer Sherlock had already known: Moriarty had kidnapped me.

_Jim Moriarty_

A copy of his file is stapled in, bits of it circled, underlined. I flick the pages so the writing is a blur, and I can read none of it.

Next, is a screenshot of a room. A room that I recognise, but it is more like De Ja Vu than any logical recognition. The angles are all wrong. In my eight weeks there, I only saw the room from one place but this is a bird's eye view, from the camera that had been above me on the wall. I am on the floor, my trousers and pants pulled down and my legs pushed out straight. Hands strung behind my back, I look like I am just about to fall on my side. My head is lolling on my chest, like I don't know Sherlock's watching.

There are so many screenshots, page after page. I rush through them, so I am only a small blurring figure, like one from a flick-book. Scrawled around them are notes. How does Sherlock have so much to say about the room_ I_ stayed so long in? I can say it was grey. It was cold, and often wet. It was... I can't continue.

The train, then. Details on platforms, and mechanisms, and potential bombs, and phone numbers, and diagrams. Sherlock was doing this, while I was strung to a wall, thirsty, hungry, terrified. Through that experience, I have learnt that thirst beats everything. I will do anything, everything for thirst. I will...

The next few pages make no sense. They are after Sherlock left. After the connection was cut off, in fury, by Moriarty, so I could see Sherlock no more...

And yet, according to this, he could see me.

Me, arms parted and strung to the ceiling. James Moriarty wrapping a plier around my little finger.

Me, naked, in the corner. A still picture, but I could almost feel my shakes through the page. Jim Moriarty, holding a glass water above my head as I reached for it.

Me bent over. Jim Moriarty, naked now too, behind me with a screwed up face.

And all around it, scrawls of Sherlock's hand writing.

Wet patches.

Shakier and shakier.

I close my eyes.

_"Everyone has to earn his keep Johnny."_

_The thrusts were violent. They tore until some part of me left forever. __He screamed with glee, again and again. __Every time, another part of me fell away._

* * *

><p>There is orange all around me. Cloaking me heavily, but not obtrusively, just solidly warm.<p>

"John?"

My hands shake as I move the orange material from my face.

Sherlock's is front of me, gazing into my eyes, a hand on each of my arms, kneeling on the floor so our faces our level. I look about. We are still in Sherlock's room. Though it feels I went on a journey that completely exhausted me, I haven't moved. Sherlock's case files though are spread round the room, so the floor, the shelves, the walls are barely visible. Paper, in some places, is ripped, screwed up, so obviously thrown, with no apparent aim. It is like a blanket of snow, but this snow is covered in years of writing, obsession and genius. Sherlock's work, ruined.

"Your work-"

"Don't." Sherlock's tone is a force I cannot compete with. "Just don't... Are you okay?"

I don't feel okay, but I can't quite remember why, until I see a scrap of paper by my foot, my name scrawled on it. "Oh _jesus..."_

"John..."

"I'm so sorry!"

Sherlock looks around the room at the strewn papers. "It's fine. My brain is reliable enough. This is just a back-up. Two copies."

"No, Sherlock. No that..."

"What?"

He tilts my chin up so I have to face him. I close my eyes.

"Oh God..." I find myself saying. "I can't believe it."

The situation is too clear. The world is too bright. I know too much. The desire to run away, burrow in some dark warm corner of the world and never think again is overwhelming. I try to stand up, but Sherlock had predicted it, and he pushes me back. All energy I once had has gone; I don't argue.

"Why couldn't you have just looked away?" I murmur.

One of Sherlock's eyebrow raises, as if of its own accord, and I know this is the sign he suddenly understands. He tilts his head up."You think those images make me think less of you," he says, blankly, a statement of fact.

"This whole time, you've been looking at me, with those images in your head..." I look away. "I thought... I had at least that left."

"Had what left?" I shake my head. "Your dignity?"

I cannot bare to nod.

"If so," Sherlock continues. "For such a clever man, you are being incredibly stupid, and have a serious misunderstanding of the word dignity."

"You don't understand what he... This is all going wrong. I can't..."

Sherlock's hands are gone from my arms. There is a shifting of weight as he sits next to me on the bed. His face is very close to mine.

"He raped me," I say, regretting it immediately.

A hand is on the side of my face, gentle. It stays there, until I do what it wants: I open my eyes. The hand becomes gentler.

"I know," says Sherlock. Sherlock does not stop looking at me. I want to run. My legs shake, but I stay still. "Dignity," he whispers. "Noun. The state or quality of being worthy of honour or respect."

"I can't..."

"I had hoped I would I need to say no more." My fists clench and unclench. "But I observe that I do..."

He pulls the blanket around me slightly harder.

"John Watson. You reminded me that dignity existed. You gave me dignity. You are the most dignified person I know, and nothing Moriarty does can change that. "

I look down. The blanket around me is the one from our first case together. Sherlock had repeatedly thrown aside, but then apparently accepted it, and secretly taken it home. I try to imagine him wrapped in it, alone in the house, unable to turn away as my torture flashes on screen.

"The blanket," I mumble.

"It has powers," Sherlock says with a sudden smile. "Tell no one."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **Coming to the end of this fic now I think. I definitely don't want to drag it out beyond it's stay. **Thank you for reading! And thank you to 666BloodyHell666 for giving me the idea to include the shock blanket. :)**

**EDIT: I've got to be honest with myself and you - I am most likely not going to update this fic again. I think this chapter wraps it up vaguely enough (hopefully). I was intending to have one chapter left, with more closure: what happens to Moriarty etc. But I feel like I've lost touch with this fic now, and have for a while.**

**Thank you for the journey**


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